


Reply Hazy, Try Again

by simmyschtuff



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 17:23:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19322722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simmyschtuff/pseuds/simmyschtuff
Summary: Foreman appears to have come into work 8 years old today. This problem seems to be catching.





	Reply Hazy, Try Again

Foreman was late.

This was not like Foreman at all, especially for a Wednesday, the most boring and easiest to get to work day of the week, so naturally, he began to explain, "The buses were running late," as he took off his coat and laid it over the back of an unoccupied chair. 

"Foreman," House said, peering over comically, rather than actually getting up from his desk.

Foreman turned to his employer.

"You're eight."

Foreman was also 8 years old on that very unboring and unaverage Wednesday, but Foreman had been hoping they could all be professional enough to overlook this until he got everything squared away and adult again, which is why he hadn't brought it up.

"I was hoping we--"

"Where'd you get a suit that size?" Chase wanted to know, eying at the miniature business jacket Foreman had bought before coming to work, and the real reason for his late arrival. 

"Probably in the kid's department," Cameron said, as if it were ludicrous Chase didn't spend his spare time combing through miniature versions of shoes and jackets available at almost every retailer, as she herself did. "Did they just let you on the bus? All by yourself?"

"He's eight, not four."

Cameron considered this, and thankfully dropped the subject, tossing a folder in Foreman's general direction and suggesting, "An autoimmune disease?"

"No, I think it's drugs," Chase disagreed. "Drugs or alcohol."

"There's no indication of any risky behavior," Cameron said. "And it wouldn't explain the rashes."

"It could if she was allergic to whatever she was taking," Chase touchéd. "Morbilliform, exfoliative dermatitis, PTS -- all negative reactions from barbiturates."

"They would've gone away under observation. She's been here a week and the rashes have only gotten worse."

Foreman glanced from the folder to the pair arguing. It wasn't that he couldn't follow what was being said, it was just the pages in his hands and their in tiny black scrawl seemed so cripplingly boring, he found it hard to care.

"And what do you think, Foreboy?" House asked, suddenly not only in the same room, but also right behind Foreman's chair.

Chase snorted at his jump of surprise, and Foreman scowled. He hadn't been _scared_ , just _startled_. "Knock it off," he demanded, then immediately realized how childish this sounded. Apparently 8 year olds were easier for House to rattle than 35 year olds. "The rashes are from the carbamazepine," he added in a mutter, pretending not to see Cameron's badly suppressed smile.

"No, antibiotics would've cleared them," Chase said.

"Then I don't know," Foreman scowled and slumped back and wondered why he never noticed how incredibly awful work was.

"I think what Foreboy _meant_ to say is that the carbamazepine would've cleared up if she'd _really_ stopped taking them," House rounded on the two that were older than 15 but younger than 30, belittling as ever, and they scoffed in indignation, began throwing out brilliant and well thought out theories, but unfortunately, being a doctor is only interesting for about ten minutes if you're 8, a half hour if you're 8 and you are also Foreman. Soon he was staring at his own shoes and found himself wondering what would happen if he dropped one out the third story window.

*

"This being eight thing isn't working out," said House, tossing the shoe he'd confiscated from his employee from hand to hand before it could be hurtled off the balcony. Foreman scowled at his own, 8 year old feet in brand new socks. "Go bother someone else. I'd steer clear of Cuddy." 

It was well known that Cuddy often snatched unaccompanied children and stashed them in her purse for comfort in her lonelier hours.

That really only left Wilson, and Foreman knocked on his office door with a rather depressing air of resignation. 

"I'm supposed to be here," Foreman said when a baffled oncologist opened his door stared down at a remarkably familiar 8 year old neurologist.

"Uh," Wilson noted, watched Foreman walk into his office and sit down on his couch. "According to who--" Just at that moment, something two balcony doors away happened to catch his eye. That thing was a crippled douche giving an obnoxious thumbs up and exaggerated smile. "I see."

Foreman watched him shift from foot to foot with deceptively calm eyes, the same kind he had as an adult, only these ones looked almost bored instead of showering everything in his view with a sparkly rainbow of arrogance. 

Wilson cleared his throat awkwardly. While he appreciated the lack of downpour, he couldn't help but tap his desk with fingers that did not quite know what to do with his guest. Needless to say, Wilson had not known he would be entertaining an 8 year old colleague today, and was woefully unprepared. "Well. Just a second."

He left the office and closed the door on Foreman's bored stare. 

*

Wilson walked into House's office. He opened his mouth to speak and closed it. He did this several times in a row, and House watched him attempt to word his thoughts with remarkable patience. "You do realize this building is a hospital?" Wilson asked, finally. 

"It'd make a really crappy mall."

"You realize," Wilson said. "That I am not here just to hang out? I am actually _paid_ to be here, I get paid to perform certain functions, that's why I'm here, in this building? That I don't just wander into that office every day, sit on my thumbs and wait for something to happen? So while I appreciate your attempts to entertain me, I do not actually need to be entertained. On the contrary, being left alone, so I can perform those functions I was talking about earlier, that's what I need."

Wilson settled in the sofa, watching House expectantly.

"Aren't you gonna go perform those functions?"

"I'm not going back in there, are you insane?" Wilson said. 

*

Frankly, the fact that House was 10 years old when he came into work the next day would've been hilarious if there hadn't been a life depending on House's ability to focus. But there was, and while House's team was often up shit creek without a paddle when it came to patients, usually they had someone calling them idiots and glaring at them from another room, and it was a surprisingly profound loss.

"You guys are so stupid," he sighed dramatically, slumping on the table. 

Or not.

"And what do you think it is?" Cameron asked, eyebrow twitching. She'd been quite enamored by the bright eyed, smooth faced boy when he first appeared, but House quickly revealed himself to be ten times worse in miniature form, as if all his selfish, crude impulses had been compressed and condensed and couldn't be contained in such a meager body. 

"Why would I say it when it's so much fun to watch you squirm?" he asked, looping his fingers behind his head, rocking his chair back confidently.

"Yeah right," Foreman, who had been allowed back in the room when House had walked in minus about forty years, said. Might as well try to contain it. "You're lying."

"You're just jealous," House said effortlessly.

Foreman huffed. "Of what? If you knew what it was you'd say so!"

House frowned, perhaps going for intimidating or thoughtful, but it looked more like a pout. "It's a . . . that thing. It's like, from that one thing and it goes into the other thing, and then it," He mimicked an explosion with his fingers, "Pa- _Kooow_!"

Chase and Cameron exchanged glances, but it did no good because Pa-Kooow was not in any medical dictionary ever, ever.

"Yeah, I'm _totally_ jealous," Foreman said, probably attempting to sound snide, but it did not work because he had an adorable little boy voice.

"You're just too stupid to understand," House said, confidence in his personal attributes unshaken. "You can't see it like I do."

Cameron jumped up from the table abruptly, digging in House's desk. "Here," she said, slapping a piece of printer paper and a pen in front of House. "Draw what you see."

After two drawings of Foreman getting eaten by a shark and crushed by an elephant, he finally doodled out a rather rudimentary representation of a certain disease that ties in everything that has been mentioned so far in this story.

"It fits," Cameron said, pleased with both herself and a patient was not going to die. 

Unfortunately, two trips to the patient, one to the lab, and three seizures later, Chase began to wonder if that was truly what their patient had.

It was looking particularly awful, so when Cameron came back from the bathroom at least two decades younger, Chase couldn't really say he was that surprised.

*

"Fairies."

"Probably not fairies," said Chase, but wrote it on the board anyway for sake of diplomacy. Cameron nodded. She was a painfully adorable child, especially so in the child sized scrubs they'd found. There had been a size that fit her, but it was green, and she had insisted on the purple, even though it was just a bit too big.

"Why?" House asked, slouched low enough for his feet to reach the ground. "Because you don't believe in fairies? I don't."

Cameron couldn't seem to stop herself, clapping frantically, "I do believe in fairies!"

"I don't believe in fairies," House repeated gleefully.

"I do! I do!" Cameron cried, still clapping. 

Once House got out of Thinking About What You've Done corner, and Cameron stopped crying, they were able to explore contaminates. Cameron's picture looked something like the patient swimming in a pink lake, which Chase was eventually able to work out as an immune deficiency, Foreman's was a crude but straightforward drawing of a neurological problem. House drew a penis.

It was after House was able to leave Thinking About What's Really Appropriate For Work corner that the newest guest arrived, accompanied by Cuddy, who looked rather worn out. "Here," she said, handing off a small, brown haired, cherub faced boy, who was obviously Dr. Wilson, if Dr. Wilson was about 6 or 7 and wearing a pair of child sized scrubs.

Chase had been worried about keeping track of four humans under the age of 10, but there was no need. The addition somehow subtracted his total to three, as House and Wilson merged into one and were soon spitting off the balcony which was disgusting, but also, Chase didn't care.

He looked over the options and decided that immune deficiency was most likely, but certainly was not going to be able to troop a horde of children down to watch him poke needles into bits of flesh.

"Foreman's in charge," Chase decided. It was either him or Wilson, and while Wilson appeared to be older, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to say no to House, and then enforce that no; and maybe Foreman wouldn't be able to either, but he'd most certainly give it his best shot.

He idly hoped no one died as he swabbed and stuck and drew and sent off liquids for examinations.

*

"I know how to do that," Foreman said, sounding terribly knowledgeable from somewhere around Chase's knee. "I'm really good at it."

"Well, maybe you can make sure I don't make any mistakes," Chase said, turned this dial that did something to something else and he looked at the new something carefully. Foreman watched his movements even more carefully. Chase made a knowing _hmm_.

"What?" Foreman asked, standing on his tiptoes as if that would bring him closer to the device that he knew exactly how to use, and use really good.

"I'm not sure yet," Chase said. "Why aren't you with the others?"

"House and Wilson are fighting," he said, rolling his eyes.

*

He heard vague, unhappy noises the moment the elevator opened on the correct floor, but only managed to recognize them as actual words when House's office came into sight.

"Does Wilson still wet the bed?" House was asking, shaking his Magic 8 ball with both hands. " _It is certain_!" he cawed victoriously.

"Stop it!" Wilson cried. "I do not!"

"But why would it lie?" House asked, then, over Wilson's insisting that House just _shut up_ , "Does Wilson have a big, fat crush on Cuddy? Results hazy, try again. Does Wilson have a big, fat, stupid crush on Cuddy?"

Chase snatched the ball from House, put it on the top shelf and whapped him upside the head with the folder in one fluid motion. "Try to focus on not being a terror for -- Wait, where's Cameron?"

House pointed an angry, pouting finger in the direction of the couch, where Cameron had fallen asleep with her adult sized lab coat draped like a blanket. Chase glanced at his watch -- 10:15 was a rather ridiculous time for a 6 year old. He sighed.

Well, they weren't going to be able to do much more outside of theorize, and if they were too tired and cranky it was pointless. "Let's call it a night."

*

He did not like thinking about how 8 year old Foreman, 6 year old Cameron, 10 year old House and 9 year old Wilson were making it to work, so that night he herded them out to his car, buckled House and Wilson in one seat, Foreman and Cameron in the other, and drove them to his place. 

They set up a fort in the living room, Cameron getting the couch, and passed out collectively at about 11 pm. Chase was quick to follow. 

Only to be awoken at about midnight to the sounds of badly suppressed giggles and fumblings as two especially tiny persons made their way across his bedroom. Chase waited for his fingers to touch warm water before sitting up in bed, and it turns out that any corner can be, What The Heck, Seriously, It's Midnight, It's Midnight, What Were You Thinking corner.

*

It was on Saturday morning that Chase began seriously thinking about long term arrangements. The diagnostics department would not function as well as it could if three of its four members weren't able to reach the lab equipment, it just wasn't practical. Plus, he doubted many people would be able to trust a Department head who hid his face in his arms when he didn't get enough syrup.

To be fair, House had used the last of it and was waving his syrup laden pancake in Wilson's direction, laughing rather manically.

It was too early to get House into a corner, as his 10 year old powers grew stronger in the early morning, where Chase hadn't been able to do much more than groan and roll out of bed. He shuffled over to the table, switched House and Wilson's plates and tried to ignore the following howls of rage while flipping the next batch of pancakes.

"Mine should be an airplane," Cameron told him primly. 

"Uh," Chase said, running a hand through undoubtedly wild hair. He had be proud of himself when he got the pancake to resemble an oval. "How about Mickey Mouse?"

"How about Minnie Mouse?" she suggested, ridiculously chipper for the hour.

"Yeah, that's what I meant," he said, doing his best to keep the three circles he'd somewhat attached in a semi-mouse like shape while flipping it.

"There's no more syrup?" Foreman asked from the table, sounding remarkably heartbroken. 

"Sorry," Chase said. "There's honey and jam, though."

That was the wrong thing to say, apparently, because he just stared down at his pancakes as though they'd somehow personally offended him. 

"Here," Chase sighed, setting the Minnie Mouse Monstrosity in front of Cameron, nearly jumping back in surprise when the tears started.

"That's not right! That's not what she looks like!" she wailed, inconsolable.

House, no doubt realizing this was the best time to strike, _accidentally_ spilled his apple juice onto Wilson's pancakes, who'd had just about enough and joined Cameron in angry, frustrated tears. 

Chase slowly backed away from the table, "I'm . . . gonna go take a shower. Wilson's in charge." 

"Why not me?" Foreman demanded, and sure enough, his bottom lip was quivering.

Chase opened his mouth once, but no sound came out. He turned to leave the most desolate room on the planet.

*

The pancakes were a mistake. An awful, sticky, sticky, miserable mistake.

He wasn't sure what made the tears stop, but by the time he'd dressed and made it back to kitchen, the four of them were all sticky, jam, syrup, honey covered messes and smiles.

They all seemed to think it was hilarious, though, which was good enough for Chase. "Everyone's hands up, don't touch anything. You'll shower at the hospital. There're clothes that'll fit there." He didn't catch him in the act, but Chase was sure House managed to run at least one syrup covered hand over something of his.

He trooped them out to his car, and watching them march with arms straight up in the air was oddly surreal, as though they were caught red handed and off to some police station.

They did not die on the way to PPTH. This was notable because House's goal had been to make it otherwise. There was no other explanation for why he continually poked Wilson with one jam covered finger, causing Wilson to scream angrily, causing Chase's heart to jump up into his throat and swing helplessly for a solid minute.

House stayed in Thinking About Why It's Wrong To Attempt To Kill Us All corner while Foreman, Wilson, and Cameron got clean in turns. It was a horribly awkward moment where Chase was helping Cameron dry off when the being a 6 year old thing wore off.

"Jesus Christ!" Chase said loudly, because he was suddenly looking a very lovely piece of the adult female anatomy and it seemed, really, like the only appropriate statement.

Cameron choked on several responses, fumbling with the towel that had not only fallen, but also, was much too small. "Get _out_ , please!" 

Chase did so, "Yeah, yeah, sorry, I didn't -- I didn't see anything!"

"You're such a terrible liar," he heard Cameron say before the door slammed shut.

*

"Contaminates are off the board," House says, crossing off various diseases then embellishing the rather violent doodles he'd made when he was still four feet, eleven inches with radiating lines and stars. "Because they never _belonged_ on the board."

He gave Chase a rather dirty look as he limped past, and he began to wonder if the whole corner thing had been a good idea after all.

"It could be an autoimmune disease," Cameron suggested. 

"It's neurological," Foreman said calmly.

Chase shook his head, "It's drugs. Drugs or alcohol."

*

House managed to figure out what it was, and by the skin of his teeth, too, barely making that forty-five minute mark. The patient was grateful, but it was bittersweet as Cameron realized she became too attached to some patients and Foreman had some thinking to do about judging people on first glance. The music montage dimmed just enough so that when Chase passed House's office, he was able to hear, _"Does Wilson still wet the bed?"_ and a dry, Holy Crap Does He Really Think This Is Funny laugh.

Chase shook his head and passed out immediately upon reaching home that night.

*

It was a Tuesday morning that Chase woke up, reached for the alarm clock but couldn't . . . quite . . . make it. . . .

He looked down at his own, short, slightly pudgy six year old arm.

He sighed, rolled over and went back to bed.


End file.
